


Learning to Forgive

by gray_autumn_sky



Series: Repentance [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 05:08:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7604788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gray_autumn_sky/pseuds/gray_autumn_sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how angry Roland is at Regina, there are times when he’ll always need his mom</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning to Forgive

There’s a clap of thunder and a flash of lightening, and Regina finds herself flinching in the dark. She presses her eyes closed as Robin rolls over and slides his arm around her middle, groggily asking her if she’s okay.

It’s a loaded question, really—so, she nods and murmurs that she is.

In reality, she’s far from it.

Though she’s never slept well through stormy nights, tonight it doesn’t really matter—when the storm started, she wasn’t sleeping anyway. In fact, she’s barely slept in weeks—because every time she closes her eyes she sees Roland’s teary eyes and trembling jaw, and the further she drifts toward sleep, she hears his shaky voice telling her that he hates her and the slamming of his bedroom door. When her eyes are closed, she can feel him pulling away his hand as her fingers unintentionally graze his as she sets a bowl of cereal that she knows will go untouched in front of him and she can hear him telling Robin, yet again, that he won’t forgive her, he doesn’t want to talk to her about it, and she is not his mother.  

For whatever reason, she’s able to make it through the days—busying herself with work and tasks around the house, checking Henry’s math homework and giving Esme her bath, doing the things she always does as if nothing’s changed—but there’s a perpetual knot that’s formed in her stomach that tightens little by little every time Roland pulls away. Robin’s tried talking to him—and Henry’s done the same—and every time, the conversations always end the same way. She doesn’t ask and they don’t tell, but their sad smiles say all that she needs to know and for just a moment when their eyes first meet hers, her heart aches and her lungs deflate as any flicker of hope she had fades away.  By the end of the day, the knot is so tight that she can barely breathe and by the time she’s ready to go to sleep, all she can think of is how much she misses the little boy who’s sleeping just down the hall, only a few feet away.    

There’s another loud clap of thunder, chased by a flash of lighting—and once again, Robin is reaching for her. She rolls onto her side as he scoots closer, glad to let him hold her as the wind begins to pick up, howling and whistling as a branch scrapes against the window. She closes her eyes and takes a breath, and once more, she thinks of Roland. 

He’s never liked storms—it was something they had in common, something they’d bonded over in the Enchanted Forest. She’d been so surprised when he’d tugged at her skirt, unafraid of the scowling stranger she’d then been. His eyes were teary and his lip pouted out as he asked her if she’d tell him a story—he couldn’t sleep because of the storm and had seen the light of her candle flickering from the hall and hoped she’d provide a happy distraction. She’d lifted him onto her lap and held him close, glad for the distraction from the storm. He’d cuddled into her, sucking his thumb as he listened to her soothing voice tell him the story of a little orange fish who’d gotten lost and whose father embarked on an epic quest across realms to save him. There’s stabbing a pain in her heart as she remembers how his tears had stopped and he’d grinned up at her and told her he liked that story, that it reminded him of him and his papa and pressed her to continue.   

“Papa…” The bedroom door creaks open and Robin lifts his head from his pillow. “Papa? Are you awake?” Roland’s little voice asks in a timid whisper. Regina takes a breath as the thunder rumbles loudly and Robin pulls away, sitting up and turning on the light on the nightstand. “Papa…” 

“Roland, what’s the matter?” Robin asks, glancing quickly form Roland to Regina and then back again. “Hey, come here…” Regina lifts her head on her pillow and her chest constricts, watching as Roland bats the back of his hand over teary eyes. He takes a tentative step forward, but the wind picks up, howling angrily as it pushes the branch roughly against the window, and Roland stops and shakes his head. “Oh,” Robin murmurs, as follows Roland’s eyes to window and suddenly, he understands. “Do you…want to get into bed with us?”  

Regina watches as Roland shakes his head, remembering one particularly stormy night when Roland had crawled into bed, settling himself between them. Robin held him tightly against his chest, curling himself around the boy, and Regina had rubbed his little hand and pressed the occasional kiss to his messy hair whenever the thunder clapped too loudly—and the memory seems from a lifetime ago.  

“Do you want me to come to your room?” Robin asks, bringing Regina back into the moment, just in time to see Roland again shake his head. “Then…what do you want to do? We could get up and watch a movie or…” 

“I…I want…” Roland pauses as his eyes shift away from Robin and to Regina. “I want my mom.”

It takes a moment to register that he means her. Robin nudges her and she sits up at little, smiling gently as she looks at Roland. He sniffles and flinches as lightening flashes, and she feels warm tears brimming in her eyes as her heart beats rapidly in her chest, not wanting to push him or expect something that he’s not offering— and she doesn’t want to get her hopes up.

“You…sure?” she asks in a tentative voice. Roland nods and sniffles again and Robin’s hand moves over hers, giving it a light, reassuring squeeze. “You can get into bed with us.” Roland looks past her at the window, where raindrops are bouncing against the pane, and he shakes his head. “Okay,” she breathes out, “Would you rather go back to your room? We could…cuddle up together in your bed.”

It takes only a half nod from Roland before she’s out of bed and walking toward him. He reaches out a shaky hand, and she takes it, exhaling a breath as she smiles warmly and tries to keep her tears at bay. He looks away from her, but still holds her hand and leads her to his room, only letting go to get back into bed. Regina’s heart flutters as he pulls back his blanket and looks up at her expectantly, and again, she doesn’t hesitate before joining him.   

A clap of thunder sends him into her arms, and she’s quick to fold them around him, pulling him close and relishing in that. “You’re okay, sweetie,” she murmurs as she presses a kiss into his hair. “It’s just a bad storm. It’ll be over soon.”

“Are you…mad at me?”   

“No.” 

“I’m…I’m still mad at you.”

She pulls him a little closer and takes a breath, smiling in relief when he doesn’t pull back. “And that’s okay. You have a right to be mad at me.” For a minute or two, he’s quiet. She can tell that he’s not asleep, but wonders if he wants her to think that he is. But regardless, he lets her hold him and her fingers stoke through his messy curls as the other hand cups the back of his head, enjoying whatever closeness he’ll allow her.

“But I…I still love you,” he says finally in a voice that’s barely a whisper.   

A smile edges onto her lips as she takes another breath, blinking back the tears that threaten to fall. “I love you, too, sweetie,” she tells him, squeezing him even closer as she nuzzles her cheek against his hair. “And…I’m sorry that I hurt you. I never meant to and I’d do _anything_ to change what I did.”      

“Henry says there’s more to your story than I know,” he tells her, still making no effort to move.

“My past is…complicated, at best,” she murmurs, feeling the knot her in stomach beginning to loosen. “If you have questions or want to know something, you can ask. It’s not something that I really want talk about and I’d rather not remember who I used to be, but I’d rather you hear about those things from me, okay?” 

“Okay,” Roland agrees, flinching as lightening illuminates the room. “But not right now.”

“Okay…”   

“Can you…tell me a story?” He presses himself closer, “Like you used to when I was little.”

She smiles softly and nods. “You know, when it started storming tonight, I started thinking about that night when we were in the Enchanted Forest and I told you that story about the little fish.”

At that, Roland giggles a little, “That was Finding Nemo.”

“It was…”  

“I liked how you told it better.”

“You did?”

“Can you tell it again?”

“Of course,” Regina murmurs, kissing the top of his head as her hand rubs up and down Roland’s back, smiling as she begins the story…

It’s not long before Roland’s asleep and the rain is easing up. The thunder’s stopped and so has the lightening and the wind is much more of a whisper than it is a roar. She knows that she could easily return to her own bed and that Roland wouldn’t wake again until morning, but she can’t bring herself to let him go and she’s perfectly content to spend the night scrunched up in an awkward position with Roland splayed across her.

She glances up and Robin’s standing there, leaning against the frame of the door, grinning softly at her as the light from the nightlight illuminates him. She smiles back as their eyes meet, and Robin pushes himself into Roland’s room and sits down on the edge of the bed. His hand falls over Regina’s knee, rubbing gently as a smile curls onto his lips.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Quite a while.”  

“Oh…”

“You can’t see it, but he’s kind of smiling in his sleep,” Robin says, glancing from Roland back to her. “He missed you.”

“And I missed him. I missed him _so_ much.” She takes a breath, closing her eyes as she again feels tears beginning to well. “He told that…that he still loves me.”   

“Of course he does,” Robin says easily as her eyes flutter back open. “He _adores_ you. He just…needed some time to remember that, and to learn to forgive.”  

“Well, I’m not glad that the storm woke him up tonight, but…” she sighs, as her hand skims gently over his back. “I’m really glad the storm woke him up because I don’t know how much more of the silent treatment I could have handled.” 

“I’m glad he’s letting you back in,” he tells her, once more rubbing his hand over her knee. “So, is it safe to assume you’ll be spending the night in here?”

Regina nods. “I have almost four weeks of snuggles to make up for, I’m not moving until he makes me.” Robin smiles and nods and leans in, pressing a kiss atop Roland’s head before leaning in and kissing Regina softly. She smiles into the kiss as he pulls away, “Good night,” she murmurs to him. 

“Good night, love. Sleep well.”

She nods and watches him go, then closes her eyes and cuddles Roland a little bit closer—and for the first time in weeks, she actually will sleep well.   


End file.
